The second half of the basketball season is kicking off next week, and here is a preview of what the Columbus Junction boys will see in the coming weeks.

The Wildcats are currently right in the middle of a conference with a four-way tie for second place. Out of the break they will face a struggling WACO team at home to start on January 3rd and then host Lone Tree on the following Tuesday.

Things don’t get any easier for Columbus Junction as they travel to WMU on January 10th, and then will face Highland again on January 17th. Columbus Junction fell to the Huskies by 22 points in their first meeting, but that was only the second game of the season and they do have the overtime loss to IMS and a win over Wapello under their belt now.

Head coach Mark Beerends said his team needs to continue what they are doing in the second half of the season and match their opponents intensity.

“[The teams we start with] play great basketball and we just have to play up to that level and maybe even above it if we are going to beat them and get the win that we need to get, but then further down the road, we have to worry about going through the conference a second time around and everyone has seen what we’ve done, and they’ve made their adjustments and we have to make our adjustments as well, and we just have to keep playing that great team basketball that we’ve been playing, and make it hard for people to defend us with that balanced scoring attack that we’ve got with four starters being in double digits like at Wapello,” Beerends said.

Columbus Junction is 2-3 after the first half of the season and start back up on January 3rd against WACO.